Mekong

Length: 4020 km / 2500 milesCatchment: 810,700 km2 / 313,000 miles2

The
Mekong rises in the Tanglha Mountains of China near the fringes of
Tibet. From about 5090 metres it drops as it heads south through Laos
and Cambodia before finally veering south east to reach the South China
Sea via southern Vietnam. Its delta provides one of the richest
rice growing regions of the world.

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This
river has been a theme for my trip in SEA. I've spent a number of
days on it or near it. I've watched a lot of beautiful sunsets
from its banks. Of all my journeys in this part of the world, the
ones on water have been the best. They're not necessarily more
comfortable, or shorter, but there's something about being on water
that soothes me and allows my mind to flow, eddy and whirlpool, just as
the water does.

Marion and I left from Luang Prabang early one
morning to board a slow boat to the Thai Border. We travelled, in
rather cramped conditions on the first day, and much more comfortably
on the second. Each day was 10 hours against the current of the
river. That's a long time, you're thinking...well, there is a
much faster way of travelling. You could get a fast boat...but
we're not that brave, or foolish, depending on how you look at it:

Fast
Boats. Long-tail boats are long, skinny boats with a 3 meter-ish
pole that sticks out of the engine on the back. There's a
propeller at the end of it, so it acts as a rudder and propulsion at
the same time. They're great for getting around in water that's
not very deep and used all over this region. The fast boats are
like Long-tail boats, except sawn in half, with a much bigger
engine. It takes 6 hours in one of these to get from the Thai
border all the way to Luang Prabang, which might be tempting
considering it's half the time of the slow boat journey in the same
direction and you can do it in one day. BUT, there are several
accidents involving these boats per week. Some of them
fatal. More importantly, they're like someone playing on a
jet-ski when you're enjoying the peace and tranquillity of a lie on a
beach. Other than these boats screaming past us, their frightened
passengers holding on for dear life in life-jackets and helmets, the
journey was incredibly pleasant.

For miles and miles, there is
absolutely no indication of human inhabitance whatsoever. Every
now and again you'd see a tiny village, or some naked kids running
along the silted beaches. I envy the freedom of their
lives. What must it be like to grow up with the Mekong as the
only road to anywhere?

We travelled to Luang Namptha, where
Marion and I hired bicycles. We were travelling on a small road
between two villages when a young boy talked to us. It seemed
that he regularly approached tourists, spoke English rather well, and
showed them interesting things in the hope they might give him
money. He offered to show us the village cemetery. We went
along with him into a grove of trees, wondering a bit why we'd agreed
to this. The cemetery was interesting - a few small wooden
buildings raised from the ground and in various states of
disrepair. There was something quite Chinese about them, which
makes sense, since we were about 25 km's from the Chinese border.
Once inside this grove, I noticed something on my foot. We'd each
picked up a number of leeches on the way! Little wriggly,
squirmy, sucky, icky things! Ew! I had to tug one quite
hard, but it hadn't bitten me yet thank goodness. We ran out of
there and I noticed about another 30 on the way out. They "stand"
up sniffing the air and trying to get on you. We'd picked up some
more and we were quite a sight pulling these things off and squealing
with disgust. I think I prefer spiders to leeches. Poor
Marion had one inside her shoe that had started sucking blood...the
wound bled profusely. They have quite an effective anti-coagulant
and are apparently brilliant for treating varicose veins...so I've
learned since. The poor kid wasn't going to get any money off us!

We
flew from there back to Vientienne, in time for the That Luang
festival. That Luang is a big golden stupa. It's not real
gold and looks quite tacky in real life, but comes out brilliantly in
photos! For the festival, they cover the stupa in lights and
surround it with a trade fair, fun fairs, food stalls, clothing stalls
and about a 100,000 people a fair portion of them monks. We were
accosted by a group of young engineering students who wanted us to walk
around with them. (I think there is status in hanging out with
Westerners here.) The whole thing was a pretty neat experience
with lots to check out and a great festival atmosphere. At any
one time though, no matter where you stood, there was about 5 different
loud sounds coming at you. For example, you'd have someone
talking about a product, some Laos music, some Western techno, the
theme tune for a fair-ground ride and a live band all blaring at you
simultaneously and loudly. Take ear plugs. ;-)

In
Laos, you can get anything you like on a stick. We took local
buses (trucks) down to the South of Laos. When ever the truck
stops, ladies come up and offer you food on sticks. You can get
barbequed chicken bits or small birds (head and all) but also bats,
squirrels, locust type things, fertilised eggs at various stages of
development, boiled, anything really. I have to admit I wasn't
brave enough to try any of this stuff. The trucks are
interesting too - they're utility vehicles of various sizes. Each
one has been kitted out with a tiny bench down the length of each side
and a roof with racks etc. There is usually a wooden bench down
the middle too. All of Laos travels like this, so you should
expect to be very short on space indeed - they only leave when they're
full and they're only considered full if there are a couple of guys
hanging off the back of them. If you have chickens under your
seat and a bag of rice under your feet you're on the right bus!
One journey was particularly crowded and we had lots of chickens under
the seat. There were a lot of bags of fish on this one, so the
floor of the truck was wet with fishy water. The chickens acted
up every now and again and splashed our legs with it...mmmm,
pleasant! :-) I had a very thorough shower after that one!

Phou
Assa and the elephant: This was cool. Phou Assa is an
ancient ruin on top of a plateau of lava flows. We hired a
motorbike to get there and on the way we got a flat tire, or at least
one that was leaking slowly. Luckily, just about anywhere in SEA
has all the equipment you need to fix a tire and it only cost us 7,000
Kip (70 US Cents) plus we had an interesting chat with a bunch of
locals and great iced coffee. (Laos has fantastic iced
coffee!) Anyway, we eventually got to the place and onto an
elephant. There's a beautiful rice-paddied valley to see from the
top, with mountains in the distance. The plateau itself is a bit
like being on a moon made of black volcanic rock and there's a weird
temple ruin that no-one knows anything useful about. I realised I
needed the loo, so the guide made the elephant sit down and we slid
off. Climbing back on the elephant was even more interesting for
both of us and I'm very glad I had that experience - it felt more
real somehow. I think the best bit was that we were the only ones
there on top of the world. It felt very special being carried
along by a gentle rocking motion in a strange and ancient place.
The elephant did keep sneezing on Marion though...she didn't like that
too much!

At the end of my trip in Laos, I found myself on Don
Det in Si Phan Don (Four Thousand Islands.) This area has a rock
shelf that's particularly resistant to erosion. The Mekong breaks
up to get around it and this created many permanent islands and some
great waterfalls. Don Det is one of the small islands where there
are quite a few bamboo bungalows owned by Laos families. There's
no electricity, no phone, no internet, no running water...just a great
view, great food, great coffee, great chilled-out company and lots of
beautiful butterflies. I spent quite a while there and had a
wonderful time not doing very much. I watched the sunsets whilst
brushing my teeth. I took walks, cycled around, ate well, drank
beer, chatted to lovely people and read a great book - all for 6
dollars a day. It did my flagging budget page the world of
good! It's a wonderful place...

I'm back in Bangkok now
and planning to chill out on a beach for my last two weeks. I'm
heading back to Lonely Beach on Koh Chang and very much looking forward
to it. I'm trying not to think about all the stuff I'm going to
miss about Asia yet...and just enjoy my last little while.